Literature and Ourselves: A Thematic Introduction for Readers and Writers

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Literature and Ourselves, 4/e, is a thematically organized anthology that treats literature as a continually expanding commentary on our infinitely varied lives, helping readers make the connection between literature and their own unique life stories. Each of the six themes - Family, Men and Women, Grief and Loss, Freedom and Responsibility, Imagination and Discovery, and Quest - progress outward from the self to larger issues. Within each theme, the book provides a unique combination of traditional and contemporary works organized by genre - essays, fiction, poetry, and drama - that reflect the diverse cultures and ethnicities that make up our world today. The fourth edition features new essays, poems, stories, and plays, three new casebooks (Amy Tan, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tim O'Brien), greater emphasis on writing about film, enhanced coverage of science fiction/fantasy, and new end-of-unit questions, "Writing About Literature and Film." For those interested in a personal approach to literature.

Casebook on August Wilson: Writing About Relationships. August Wilson, Fences. Sandra Shannon, from The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson. Alan Nadel, Boundaries, Logistics, and Identity: The Property of Metaphor in “Fences” and Joe Turner's “Come and Gone.” John Timpane, Filling the Time: Reading History in the Drama of August Wilson. Harry Elam, Jr., August Wilson's Women. A Student Essay: Jim Fowler, Baseball Metaphors in “Fences.”

Fiction. Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron. Zenna Henderson, As Simple as That. John Updike, A & P. Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Isacc Asimov, Frustration.

Poetry. William Blake, London. William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us. Stephen Crane, A Man Said to the Universe. Rudyard Kipling, If. W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen. Randall Jarrell, The Woman at the Washington Zoo. Karl Shapiro, The Conscientious Objector. Anne Sexton, Ringing the Bells. Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool. Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Pat Mora, Immigrants. Joy Harjo, The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window. Dwight Okita, In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers.

Drama. Sophocles, Antigone.

Casebook on Tim O'Brien: Writing About War. Tim O'Brien, How to Tell a True War Story. Tim O'Brien, On the Rainy River. Tim O'Brien, The Man I Killed. Tim O'Brien, Good Form. Kaplan, Stephen. The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.. Callaway, Catherine. 'How to Tell a True War Story:' Metafiction in The Things They Carried. Robinson, Daniel. Getting It Right: The Short Fiction of Tim O'Brien.

Student Essay.

IMAGINATION AND DISCOVERY.

Essays. Frederick Douglass, from My Bondage and My Freedom. Chinua Achebe, Africa and Her Writers. Sandra Cisneros, Heritage: An Offering to the Power of Language. Paul Theroux, Discovering Dingle.

Casebook on Joyce Carol Oates: Writing About Darkness. Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?. Joyce Carol Oates, Valentine. Joyce Wegs, 'Don't You Know Who I Am?' The Grotesque in Oates's 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'. Nancy Bishop Dessommes, O'Connor's Mrs. Mary and Oates' Connie: An Unlikely Pair of Religious Initiates.

Student Essay.

QUEST.

Essays. Plato, Allegory of the Cave. Stephen Hawking, Conclusion to a Brief History of Time. Mike Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average. V. S. Naipaul, from Lost. Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tuscan.